


Whispers in the Dark

by waitingtobelit



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingtobelit/pseuds/waitingtobelit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Marius’ lack of coordination steers him in a different direction and a moment of understanding leads to a moment of breathless delight. AU in which Cosette and Marius never meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a lovely anon on Tumblr who requested Eponine/Marius and suddenly I find myself really shipping it. I have like, an armada when it comes to ships in this fandom oops. And I ship every variation of Marius/Cosette/Eponine, I realize. Oops? I just love the idea of these two lonely souls taking shelter in each other. 
> 
> Also I really hate Marius' grandfather, in case it isn't obvious.
> 
> Set in movieverse with details from the novel. Title comes from the Mumford & Sons song of the same name.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Les Miserables. This was written purely for recreational purposes only.

  Pacing around his cramped room, the letter in his grasp remains unopened in spite of the number of times he’s passed it from hand to hand. For the past hour, the agitated echoes of his footsteps have been his sole companions. (And no doubt, the cause of annoyance for the residents just below him. Again.) He barely remembers to light the few candles in his possession after another five minutes of walking.

   Returning to his apartment after learning of Lamarque’s death at the Musain to find the envelope awaiting him caught Marius like some phantom figure in the distance calling out his name. ‘Monsieur Gillenormand’ glares at him through sharp ink still, as though his grandfather were in the room with him. His hands tremble slightly and his shoulders heave from both the tension of tonight’s meeting and the thought that he passed by a significant turning point in his life today.

  He had just scattered from the gathering by Lamarque’s house. He paused briefly in a quieter section by the Café Musain over by the grocers’, before which a cart of apples rested innocently enough. Marius, blood ignited by the crowd and dazed for lack of steady breath, caught his foot on the wheel of it; his body contorted as though he were in the middle of a pirouette as he tumbled to the ground.

   Picking himself up with Eponine’s help, having bruised more than just his ego, he thought he might’ve caught a glimpse of gold off in the distance. He thought the world would never stop spinning as he tried to catch sight of that sliver of light. Over in the alleyway where the charitable citizens gave alms to the poor, a slight movement, like that of a butterfly’s wings or a ribbon trailing from a lady’s bonnet, trembled in the wind.

  But as Marius inhaled deeply to stave off the searing pain in his knees the movement ceased and he wondered if he wasn’t just seeing things from spending too much of life buried in his books. He turned to Eponine then, whom he saw to have an expression of one who had just seen a ghost. She waved his inquiry off, muttering something about “just someone I thought I knew” before guiding him back to the apartment building they shared.

  His knees still ache as he passes by his mattress now, slumped and torn, exhaustion sinking deep in his bones. Truth be told, a small piece of him yearns for the blindness of his childhood, when the world fit within his stuffed animals and he still looked to his grandfather as the word of God. He saw only the barest outlines of shadowy life beyond Gillenormand’s manor veiled behind relentless obedience.

 But of course the death of his father tore down that façade of an existence. The truth of his father’s bravery, of how he fought under Napoleon for a better tomorrow still digs into him like the sharp tip of a dagger as he recalls the blatant lies his grandfather told him.

  Earlier in the café Grantaire had teased him, saying how they’d never see Marius “ooh and ah” on account of his head being perpetually in the clouds. The rest of them had joined in before Enjolras chastised them all for lack of focus. The brunt of their leader’s ire fell mostly on Marius for dreaming too much and not acting enough, an accusation that prickled his skin more than Enjolras’ usual reprimands that evening.

  He falls onto his mattress and remembers the walk home as it began to rain, the drops falling as loudly as the beating of his heart. He ventured the long way back, meandering through alleyways and passing through the barest entrances to the underbelly of Paris as he thought how Enjolras had his revolution and Grantaire his bottle. Himself, he had no crutch to help him through this life. No beliefs passionate enough to define his life with any kind of meaning, only the artifice his grandfather raised him in that now settles in him like consumption.

  And in the dark by himself, he thinks of how he treated his father with disdain in his letters and he crumples the one in his hand as though he could crush his past wrongs with the same ease as the paper. His eyes burn until tears like candle wax trickle down his cheeks. His chest constricts and his breath begins to falter as the ache of every emotion from the past few hours catches up with him.

  “Monsieur?”

  The gentle tapping following Eponine’s familiar, raspy yet quiet voice jolts him. He turns to find her standing just within the frame of his open door, dropping the letter in his haste.

  “Oh Eponine,” he quickly wipes his sleeve across his face though it hardly makes a difference. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “You never see me there,” she grins at him in the dark before catching sight of his tear-stained face. “Oh. Are you...are you alright?”

  She walks gradually across the room, daring no farther than a foot from his mattress, the lone piece of furniture in the room except for his desk in the left corner. 

  “Yes, yes. I am quite well. I assure you.” He turns to the floor to keep the crack in his smile from view, his left hand clenched in the sheet by his side. “Don’t fret about me, Eponine.”

  “Forgive me, monsieur,” she says, stepping a bit closer and staring at him so intently that he can’t help but raise his head to meet her glance, “but you’re a terrible liar.”

  “I - ” He has nothing to say. He can hardly refute her claim, though, as a student aspiring to be a lawyer he probably should be concerned about his lack of ability in telling a convincing lie.

  “What’s this?”

  Eponine stoops to pick up his discarded letter. He remains seated, fist unclenched as his shoulders begin to droop like wilting flowers.

  “It’s just a letter.” He says, his voice no louder than a ghost. He looks to the decrepit stains on the wall directly across from him as both hands tremble. He flinches but doesn’t attempt to stop her from opening it.

  For a moment, silence reigns over them both. Fading candlelight casts strange shadows that dance like demons, encircling the room with their macabre delight. One in particular appears to cackle at him, and on closer inspection, Marius thinks those shadows resemble more his grandfather’s pompous friends than the fantastic creatures he sometimes reads about. He scoffs at the thought and folds into himself, crossing his arms across his chest.

  “It’s from your grandfather.” She finally says, and he turns to find the parchment unopened in her grasp. “Don’t you want to know what it says?”

  He shakes his head, bringing a trembling hand up to grasp at his face. Eponine takes that as her cue to walk over and sit herself beside him on the mattress. He marvels at her ability to understand without really knowing much of his situation. Certainly, she is aware of the severed ties between himself and his grandfather. But even without knowing how he kept his father from him, she senses without words how much the letter tears at his soul.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, placing a street-roughened hand on his shoulder. Marius starts at the warmth of it, the sudden radiance of the simple touch that bursts like divine light within him.

  No one in his life has ever touched him like this, the mere act of comfort without expecting anything in return. Her hand upon his should plays upon his heart like a harp, the vibrations of strings echoing in his mind the longer her fingers press into him. When she starts to pull her hand away, wincing as he intently stares directly at her, he stops her, taking her hand and pressing it to his shoulder with one of his own. He thinks he is, perhaps, seeing her fully for the first time.

  “It’s…” he shrugs, struggling to put his thoughts into words. “I know he’s my family and I ought to make my peace with him, but - ”

  “You find that peace won’t come so easily?” She says, leaning in closer to him. He nods. “Would peace make you happy?”

   He starts slightly at that, the thought never having occurred to him before. He tries to think of a life in which he reconciles with his grandfather, a chance to return to a life of comfort and ease. Pastel sitting rooms and empty conversations about the latest fashion trends roll through his thoughts like a summer storm. He would have to at least compromise on his political beliefs to even hope to achieve such a goal. He would have to forget that his grandfather kept him from ever knowing his father.

 “No, you know what? It really wouldn’t.” He says as the realization dawns on him. “At least, not a peace worth suffering for.”

  She nods for the briefest moment before crumpling the letter with her free hand and throwing it clear across the room. Her eyes crinkle as her nose scrunches up in mischievous delight.

  “Sometimes you have to make a new family for yourself. Burn bridges and all that,” she speaks with a heartbreaking amount of experience in her voice.

  Her brown eyes glitter darkly in the shadows as he brushes a stray strand of black hair away from her face. Poverty dims her but the dirt on her skin cannot conceal the beauty within her. She has known more hardship than he is capable of imagining. (He recalls her shoving him out of the way so that she might aid in her family’s wicked business twice in the last month alone. He can still picture her sauntering off with Montparnasse in the dark, the thought of which oddly grates at him now.) In spite of the ugliness of her life, she endures with more courage than even Enjolras, whose incendiary speeches flicker in comparison with the embers of Eponine’s determination.

   This brave soul who sits beside him now sends ripples through his heart with all the gentleness of a pebble cast into a stream. He feels inadequate in her presence. The world around him seems to start spinning in another direction altogether.

 “Monsieur?” Her breath hitches slightly as he brings her hand from his shoulder to his lips and places the lightest of kisses upon it. He lets her hand drop but he does not let go.

  “Please, mademoiselle,” he says with a quirk of his lips, “call me Marius.”

  “Mon- Marius,” she sounds so much younger than before, unable to keep her smile out of her voice as a faint blush creeps into her cheeks. She pulls her hand away gently and he wonders if he did something wrong before she brings both hands to his face. She cradles him like a beloved doll, leaning in so close that their foreheads now rest together.

  “If you ask, I’ll be yours.” She whispers against his cheek and he shivers.

   “Will you?” He fumbles with the words so that they come out as a drunken slur. He feels the embarrassment as it illuminates the freckles across his face and thinks he must look quite ridiculous by now.

  “Yes,” she breathes against his lips and then they are kissing, his gangly arms pulling her forward by the waist as her own drape over his neck.

   He finds himself lost. He hopes the fact that he’s never kissed anyone in his life doesn’t show in the way he clings desperately to her. He tries not to let the sensation of it go to his brain, even as the warmth of their mouths meeting sparks within him like kindling Luckily Eponine seems more knowledgeable. She nudges his lips with her own until he relents, moving her arms so as to push him gently down onto the mattress.

   He breaks the kiss for a moment to catch his breath, his thin chest heaving beneath her miniscule form.

   “I’m yours,” he leans up to whisper against her lips. She grins against his before kissing him again.

  They never get any farther than kissing. Eponine makes no move to leave Marius’ arms, and he only holds her tighter in response. The candles have all blown out by now, the shadows expanding further under the plain moonlight. The night grows colder but he feels himself on fire, engulfed in a new world unlike any he’s ever known. The tight feeling in his chest, the idea that he walked straight past his destiny, dissolves with each nuzzle of Eponine’s nose against his neck.

   They fall asleep in each other’s embrace.

  The crumpled letter remains in a ball in a corner.


End file.
